When your wind blows follow it....
Updated: Nov 23, 2018
Life has a eb and flow to it. Sometimes it throws you a curve ball and you have to make a choice do I roll with the punches or fight back kicking and screaming?
Most people who have found their spot in life can think back to one year in particular that seems to have a cumulative effect on their life, everything just seemed to happen in that span of time. I call this the whirlwind year. Though it's a fun name its normally not as fun to live through and you have no idea what will be your whirlwind year until you are in a much better place and can step back and look at everything that happened with clear eyes. You begin to see that everything happened for a reason. All those left turns, tears, heartbreaks and risks were for a reason.
For me 2011 was the whirlwind year that change the course of everything. Getting married, having a baby and buying a house in a 2 year span was a whirlwind too but that happened later and the only reason all the good stuff happened was because all the bad stuff happened back in 2011. Since that time I have grown, and changed. In some ways I became a completely different version of myself but at the same time that fighter, survivor and thriver is still my core. On January 1st 2011 I was 23, working a career job living in the city I was born in. I had lived other places for a minute but I had been in my home city for some time at this point. By all counts people looking at me would have assumed I would serve my time in a job that I hated but paid well, find a cute little place in the city and spend my evenings having Tim Hortons and chating with friends. By January 1st 2012 I had just met my now husband, living 4 hours away in a bigger city and was working for an invention company.
2010 ended with me coming out of a bad relationship that landed them in jail. On my road to rediscover myself and recover from what happened I decided I needed to get out of the house, it was crippling me. I spent my days and nights terrified he'd come back to finish me. A friend happened to post they were on their way to a volunteer run haunted house that needed all hands on deck. This was a few weeks before Halloween when it was still in the construction period. I figured fuck it I need to get out of the house, I have some experience, I know and trust one person there and can meet others. Most importantly no one would know where to find me if they were looking for me. Upon finding out I had limited experience but experience none the less with special effect make up and they had no one that became my second home. A lot happened between the fall of 2010 and spring of 2011. At one point I ended up staying with a friend of friends well I found a safer place to stay. Before finding a cute little place on an active street and close to friends and family. It was perfect for the time being. Unfortunately shortly after moving in my father passed away from cancer, more unfortunately my only relationship with him was through the 2-3 year battle before the cancer took him. He had been battling for awhile at that point which was why he reached out to me. It was hard and awkward and left me feeling more alone and out of sorts than ever before. I barley knew the guy but was mourning the loss of a father I never had and never would have now. A lot happened in that time, most of it is a blur. I wasn't sleeping or eating and was pretty much just a shell of the woman I once knew at this point. I had little to no support at this time, a job the made me want to jump off a bridge and left me bullied and humiliated on a daily basis and needed a change and fast.
On a whim I started looking into special effects schools and found one close by. Well, 4 hours away but still close enough to get home for an emergency yet far enough away to start over fresh. By early summer I had been accepted, put my 2 weeks in and thought I had found a cute place to stay with other students. In the process of the 6 month blur my car got repoed because I wasn't working to make the money to pay it and couldn't think clearly enough to handle the situation better. So I show up with my uhaul and lots of big dreams and find the place I'm suppose to be staying leaves a lot to be desired and would be impossible to move my stuff into and live in happily. I end up with another apartment in the building that is bigger but had no heat, no power and a door that gave other renters access to my apartment. No stove, no working fridge, it was the worst living conditions I had ever stayed in. The bathroom window on the first floor was broken in and the landlord just told me to put cardboard over it . After a crippling break down a friend came to visit and help me not completely lose it. By this point I had nothing left in me and was walking a very fine line with my sanity, anxiety, and depression. I was also realizing my now previous job left me with some serious PTSD that I had to work through if I wanted to function. So no car, no job, no power, no heat, no stove and I was in town that had nothing in it. There was no restaurants, no coffee shops, literally nothing in this town and my apartment was on a 90 degree mountain hike straight up from the closest store. I was in distress and had nothing left in my reserve tank. I really didn't know what else I could handle before I snapped. At some point I was asked to help a friend out at the local horror convention. I ended up meeting the owner of the school who was such an arrogant prick I said fuck it I'm not giving this dude all my money so I pack up and move to the closest city. I ended up getting a tiny little place with again no heat but the first day out and about I walk into my husband's shop on what would be his last official day working there.
All of that and so much more I didn't even get into led me here. I have an amazing family, I love our house and I love my job. Had you told me before that all of that had to happened and would lead me here I would have smacked you.... but here I am and I wouldn't change any of it even if I could because it's not worth risking losing all of this.
Your worst days are the ones that will lead to your best days, just find the strength to put one foot in front of the other and ask for help when you need it.